**Spoiler-Heavy** Discussion of the Showdown Devices

[Toranth]

I'd meant to ask about:

Looking a little closer reveals the source of my confusion:  It's based on Total AIP, not Effective AIP.  Waves didn't used to work that way, did they?  Normal non-SD waves are doing it, too.

That would definitely be a bug, for both SD and non-SD.  Is the log telling you that it's using a number which is total AIP (according to what your screen says in-game) instead of effective?

The logfile text still says effective, for example:

Code: [Select]

workingShips = ( effectiveAIP * player.AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - player.AIDifficulty ) : 11.67
(this example NOT from the event in question)

However, I loaded up a game that had 160 points of AIP Reduction, but only about 30 Total AIP (really early, after clearing all the Data Centers).  I then waited till a wave triggered.  It was Tech 1.  Then I used the "Get Angry" cheat to add 200 AIP.  That put the total AIP over the Tech 2 threshold, but after AIP reduction, it should have still been under.  When the next wave popped up, it was Mk II ships.  Here's a screenshot of that second wave:

[keith.lamothe]

However, I loaded up a game that had 160 points of AIP Reduction, but only about 30 Total AIP (really early, after clearing all the Data Centers).  I then waited till a wave triggered.  It was Tech 1.  Then I used the "Get Angry" cheat to add 200 AIP.  That put the total AIP over the Tech 2 threshold, but after AIP reduction, it should have still been under.  When the next wave popped up, it was Mk II ships.

Was it 100% MkII ships?  Remember that pretty much every wave is a mix of the current mark and the next one, though right after you hit the threshold it's not going to be many of the next mark.  But if you're very near the next threshold then it will be primarily the next mark, which I believe is what informs the alert text in that screenshot.

Anyway, you weren't basing your conjecture about the "using total AIP instead of effective AIP" off the ship-count appearance or math?

[Toranth]

Was it 100% MkII ships?  Remember that pretty much every wave is a mix of the current mark and the next one, though right after you hit the threshold it's not going to be many of the next mark.  But if you're very near the next threshold then it will be primarily the next mark, which I believe is what informs the alert text in that screenshot.

Anyway, you weren't basing your conjecture about the "using total AIP instead of effective AIP" off the ship-count appearance or math?

I'll check a save for actual ships, but you are correct, I was basing my statement off what the Wave Announce text said, rather than math or actual wave.  Give me a little to duplicate a test case, and I'll get back with the results.


edit: Results - The ships showing up are of the correct proportion between Mk I and Mk II.  That means it's just the Wave Announce that's showing Mk II.  In otherwords, my mistake.

I noticed it flips between Mk I and Mk II right around the 50% mark, but not always.  I tried several waves right at about the 50% mark, and I saw some strangeness in what it did.

For example:

Code: [Select]


5/31/2013 7:43:53 PM (6.038)
-----------------------------------
Starting CreateHomogenousWaveToPlanet at Game Time: 0:11:41 ; Player.AIType: Vanilla ; Player.AIDifficulty: 7 ; AIProgressionLevel: 116 ; AITechLevel: 1
WaveSize = MultiplierFromWaveInterval * MultiplierFromHumanHomePlanetAndChampionCount: 1 * 1 = 1
workingShips = ( effectiveAIP * player.AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - player.AIDifficulty ) : 135.33
workingShips *= FInt.FromParts( 0, Configuration.NonSimRandom.Next( 800, 1100 ) ) : 135.86
workingShips = Max(workingShips,34 * handicap_multiplier) :135.86
Inside AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, multiplier: 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType call, workingShips :135.86
numberShips = workingShips.IntValue :135
numberTech123 = numberShips - numberExplosive - numberCore :135


5/31/2013 7:43:53 PM (6.038)
-----------------------------------
Starting CreateHomogenousWaveToPlanet at Game Time: 0:11:41 ; Player.AIType: Vanilla ; Player.AIDifficulty: 7 ; AIProgressionLevel: 116 ; AITechLevel: 1
WaveSize = MultiplierFromWaveInterval * MultiplierFromHumanHomePlanetAndChampionCount: 1 * 1 = 1
workingShips = ( effectiveAIP * player.AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - player.AIDifficulty ) : 135.33
workingShips *= FInt.FromParts( 0, Configuration.NonSimRandom.Next( 800, 1100 ) ) : 136.26
workingShips = Max(workingShips,34 * handicap_multiplier) :136.26
Inside AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType, multiplier: 1
after AdjustNumberShipsFromAIType call, workingShips :136.26
numberShips = workingShips.IntValue :136
numberTech123 = numberShips - numberExplosive - numberCore :136


5/31/2013 7:43:53 PM (6.038)
-----------------------------------
Receiving AddInboundWave from Host at Game Time: 0:11:41
WaveSize factor: 1
Raw Units Dictionary Entries:
ZenithChameleon => 67
Dreadnought => 1
ZenithChameleonII => 68


5/31/2013 7:43:53 PM (6.038)
-----------------------------------
Receiving AddInboundWave from Host at Game Time: 0:11:41
WaveSize factor: 1
Raw Units Dictionary Entries:
Fighter => 68
LeechStarship => 1
FighterII => 68


[Cyborg]

Well that was interesting.

I tried two separate games. My second game, 7/7 (grid layout), I was getting waves of 24,000 units on tech level I, going up against Mark five ships mixed in. Four separate planets need to be defended simultaneously, and they better be contiguous because it's a mad dash between all four.

I ended up enabling cheats, I spawned well over 700 artillery golems, and I still lost because the GCS has infinite range and smacks your home command station through your force fields. There's no stopping it. If you do stop it, you have to do it on a separate planet because of the explosion.

And I tried to see if going through all that effort actually paid off, but from what I can tell, it's only turning off strategic reserves at first which is the biggest help.

I found completing the showdown to be anti-climactic in the sense of, no journal entry and no fanfare for surviving that multipronged onslaught. And then comes the GCS, and it's all over anyways.

I propose toning down the waves and making them proportional to your tech level. If the GCS is intended to be an instant win if it lands on your home command station, that should probably be in the journal entry as a clue.



This feels too difficult for the reward (you'd be better off attacking a command station). Any reinforcements you might have stopped are more than compensated by a gigantic set of waves that come staggered every few minutes.

[keith.lamothe]

I was getting waves of 24,000 units on tech level I

Was this with golems, spirecraft, fallen spire, and/or champions on?  And were you taking advantage of all of those that were on, or were some on just to keep the door open but you weren't using them (yet)?  FS contributes corresponding to city structures so it won't nail you just for having it on, but the golems and spirecraft cause the increase in SD response even if you don't have any.

Anyway, what would have been a reasonable wave size, given the circumstances?

I spawned well over 700 artillery golems

Planet-cracker indeed.

I still lost because the GCS has infinite range and smacks your home command station through your force fields.

It does have infinite range but it's not supposed to be immune to forcefields (nor do I see that flag in the code).  A while ago it was possible to hit something through a stack of ffs with a dense enough uber-salvo that the object lost the one currently tanking for it and didn't get to check for more ffs before the rest of the salvo came in, but I thought that was fixed a while ago.

Anyway, yea, you generally need to stop these before they make it to your HW.  If you have no superweapons on then the GSCs themselves are really nasty but the other stuff coming in should be more manageable, and if you have any superweapons on then you should probably be able to kill a GSC in an ambush or three, depending on what exactly you have (an FS fleet will maul one horribly via wormhole ambush, a Spirecraft Penetrators/Rams can probably do similarly, and BB champ(s) can harry it with several suicide runs and do a lot of damage with the right modules).

The point was for it to be both challenging and possible (in favorable conditions) both without superweapons and with them, though the "everything on" case is supposed to be pretty nasty because then you've got all those toys to kill it with.

And I tried to see if going through all that effort actually paid off, but from what I can tell, it's only turning off strategic reserves at first which is the biggest help.

After the thirty minutes all waves, counter-waves, raid-engine-waves, CPAs, reinforcements, additions to strategic reserves, additions to special forces, exos (of any kind), etc... they all stop, permanently.  At that point, any AI ship you kill stays dead and is not replaced (well, aside from regenerator units, but you get the idea).  How long you have to take advantage of that depends on the map and HW placement, of course.

I found completing the showdown to be anti-climactic in the sense of, no journal entry and no fanfare for surviving that multipronged onslaught. And then comes the GCS, and it's all over anyways.

Well, the GCSs are the climax of the showdown.  You kill them, you win.  You don't kill them, you lose.

I could add journals for charging-started, charging-finished, and GCSs-destroyed, but in the past the journals have had a pretty minor impact on player enjoyment (from what I can tell) compared to the time it takes to write and incorporate them, so I've been trying to focus that time on coding the new stuff and fixing bugs that were annoying people instead.

If the GCS is intended to be an instant win if it lands on your home command station, that should probably be in the journal entry as a clue.

That's a good point.  It shouldn't be an instant win, depending on how many ffs you've got on the station, but a GCS being on your HW would be a "this game is going to be over one way or the other in about 10 seconds tops" situation.

This feels too difficult for the reward (you'd be better off attacking a command station).

Generally speaking if you don't have the force to take down the HWs you won't have the force to win by SD, no.  Otherwise the normal victory method would become kind of rare, which isn't what I'm wanting.  This is for when you think you can take the AI, and want it to bring-it-on. (edit: it's probably also significantly faster than playing through the rest normally, and lets you avoid any brutal-core-guard-post knots, etc)

The AI may perhaps be a little too enthusiastic about this, currently

[LaughingThesaurus]

I've been avoiding reading any details about it for when I start the showdown (although the worldgen has completely screwed me by placing all of the wonderful toys adjacent to core worlds), but it strikes me almost as if you should build up so much strength that the AIP would basically forbid you from even fighting the AI directly. Like, you should be on the cusp of a stalemate, and activate the showdown to break the stalemate. The most interesting part is I'll be activating the showdown on difficulty 6, and probably savescumming a lot as a result of that. I've been playing conservatively in terms of AIP, but I'm wondering if I should just gobble up planets for knowledge as well so I can fill out my mark III and IV fleet ships, and grab a lot of mark IV starships and stack fortresses everywhere. Seems like that's more or less what you need to do.

[Toranth]

Question about Armor, Armor Piercing, and the GCSs.
Max Armor Piercing is 999,999 for all units, but the Armor on the GCS is 100,000,000.  This reduces all damage, from almost any source, even those with 'max' Armor Piercing, to 20%.  I'm assuming it's supposed to be that way?  It even seems to be working with Implosion Artillery as well.  I'm not certain, though, as I couldn't set up a clean experiment (I kept losing units too fast to tell for sure).

But right now, even units like Penetrators or Artillery Golems get reduced to 20% damage, despite 'Max' Armor Piercing.  Even Implosion Artillery, which should be special, are getting stuffed.  That's just not right.

[Cyborg]

I was getting waves of 24,000 units on tech level I

Was this with golems, spirecraft, fallen spire, and/or champions on? 

All of the above, but I'm not actually going for all of them. I like to turn everything on, and just go where the game takes me. I would rather have the multiplier be based upon the current firepower rather than the binary state of on or off of certain options.

And were you taking advantage of all of those that were on, or were some on just to keep the door open but you weren't using them (yet)?  FS contributes corresponding to city structures so it won't nail you just for having it on, but the golems and spirecraft cause the increase in SD response even if you don't have any.

Can we fix that?

Anyway, what would have been a reasonable wave size, given the circumstances?

Hard to remember before I wrote a macro to spawn hundreds of golems.    How about four times the current firepower, to start with? Or differentiate the waves a little bit better so they are each a different multiplier.

I spawned well over 700 artillery golems

Planet-cracker indeed.

Someday. Your showdown plot was close to what I was thinking in some respects. Now I'm going to have to think of something else. Maybe for the winter edition.

I still lost because the GCS has infinite range and smacks your home command station through your force fields.

It does have infinite range but it's not supposed to be immune to forcefields (nor do I see that flag in the code).  A while ago it was possible to hit something through a stack of ffs with a dense enough uber-salvo that the object lost the one currently tanking for it and didn't get to check for more ffs before the rest of the salvo came in, but I thought that was fixed a while ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxbrAG00NmE&feature=youtu.be

For your amusement. Please note that I have 200+ artillery golems and 15 force fields, and that monstrosity just shoots across the map and blows it all to smithereens. I tried this with 400+ golems, and while it goes down, the nuclear explosion destroys the planet anyway, and you still lose. If the GCS is not meant to be an instant win, I think it's time to entertain nuclear explosion immunity on the home planet, some kind of bomb shelter unit, and/or changing some of the targeting. You can't defend 720 million damage every four seconds that auto targets your command station. Potential fixes would be   decreasing the range and/or fiddling with radar dampening solutions.

you should probably be able to kill a GSC in an ambush or three

Of course, assuming that you have enough units left and can rebuild after the set of waves, you can take it down. I would also suggest lowering the speed of that ship to 35 or something. All this will do is give a little bit more time in case of serious damage and/or your fleet scattered everywhere. It has infinite range anyway, so it's not like the speed on the planet itself is a huge deal. It's only about the time until it lands in your galactic kingdom.

The point was for it to be both challenging and possible (in favorable conditions) both without superweapons and with them, though the "everything on" case is supposed to be pretty nasty because then you've got all those toys to kill it with.

Yeah, I get it, it just doesn't reflect the situation of the player if you're just going by the binary state of on or off. There needs to be more fine-tuned assessment.

I could add journals for charging-started, charging-finished, and GCSs-destroyed, but in the past the journals have had a pretty minor impact on player enjoyment (from what I can tell) compared to the time it takes to write and incorporate them, so I've been trying to focus that time on coding the new stuff and fixing bugs that were annoying people instead.

...I like them. And some of them are very informative. Sometimes I feel like the game could do a better job of communicating the rules without big bold lettering "and here are the rules, here are the wave sizes and multipliers…" You don't need to get scientific, just an overview. Losing is fun, losing because the game knows the rules and you don't can feel cheesy.

If the GCS is intended to be an instant win if it lands on your home command station, that should probably be in the journal entry as a clue.

That's a good point.  It shouldn't be an instant win, depending on how many ffs you've got on the station, but a GCS being on your HW would be a "this game is going to be over one way or the other in about 10 seconds tops" situation.

To summarize, suggested fixes:

• nuclear immunity (from the AI only, not the player if that's possible) on the home command station
• radar dampening/range adjustment to prevent infinite range 720 million damage every four seconds.
• Speed to 35 for the GCS
• multipliers need to be fine-tuned for toys that are on but not being used

[LaughingThesaurus]

Would it be better if the multiplier were based not on how many golems or spirecraft you have, but on how many you have captured in that given game? That way, if you lose some, the waves don't suddenly back off as a result.

[Eternaly_Lost]

Although I am still waiting for the current slideshow attempt to end, Showdown devices are a LOT harder then Fallen Spire end game.

I built my standard 9/9 Fallen Spire end game Exo-Fleet blocker and it just busted though it like nothing, so I reloaded to try again. I now have a triple Whipping boy, with the front most having a Warhead gate and Nukes queue to spawn as needed and they have already broken though the first one of those and I still have 10 minutes let and my Spire Fleet is gone. My 16 City worth of Fallen Spire Fleet.

There is nothing left to unlock in this game either, I have them.

I still might be able to win this, but it looking increasingly grim as each wave gets close and close to hitting the third world, and that is where my Spire Fleet is rebuilding. I am killing ships by the 10,000. (One nuke was 40,000+ ships alone) and there is still more coming.

I did not even have to build a wall this strong when I did 10/10 8 homeworld fallen spire end game. (on 4/10 as we did not have the setting at that time)

Here is how I feel with regards to Golems and Spirecraft. Set them so that the level of Spire craft or Golems effects it, and I suggest that you also only give boost based on currently alive golem or spirecraft. The AI does not care that much about dead units normally, until it something imporant of their own.

[Eternaly_Lost]

And that attempt is dead. 55 seconds left on the clock and the AI blew up one of the stations. But I had lost over half the galaxy at that point, so I figured I was done anyway with no ships.

I am going to go trigger the fallen spire end game fleet to make certain, but I am certain that they can't get though any of the three worlds I set up.

Showdown is MUCH harder then the Fallen Spire Endgame, and I was fairly certain that was not what was intended.

[Cyborg]

laughing thesaurus, I'm not opposed to that idea, and I actually think we can get a little bit more clever about it. At least we agree that just having options on doesn't mean we should get flooded with 25,000 ships, many of them core level.

eternally lost, your experience sounds similar to mine, but I was playing on a grid map so I didn't have that chokepoint option available.

[LaughingThesaurus]

The way I see it, just having your options open shouldn't be inherently punished. If you engage in using the toys, then the AI probably should keep its increase in response even after you use it. Why? Because you have gone beyond "just having options open". Presumably you got golems or spirecraft, and lost them after getting who knows how much use out of them.

[keith.lamothe]

Agreed on not having anything contribute simply by being on.

For FS is currently already checking for how many cities/structures you have, so I think that one's ok.

For Champs it does 0.25*ChampCount so it's not totally binary, but unless you're up to BBs it's a penalty.  Would 0.0625 * ChampHullSize * ChampCount be better?  ChampHullSize being 1 for FF, 2 for DD, etc.  Or perhaps 0.5 for FF, 1.25 for DD, 2.5 for CA, 4.0 for BB.  Not sure how accurate that is about the power.

For Golems, should it be a certain multiplier per golem you actually have under your command?  Different for each type of golem?  Suggested numbers?

For Spirecraft, should be a certain multiplier per spirecraft you actually have under your command?  I'm not sure that'd actually be accurate, though, as you can go from "just asteroids" to "dazzalottamartyrs" quite quickly.  I guess it could just contribute zero if you have zero Spirecraft, and if you cheese it by building them after the 30 minutes... well, I guess then you cheese it

My first concern was making sure SD wouldn't just be hugely easy to exploit for a win, as that kind of short-circuits the game. 
But a higher priority is that they be fun, and I think they've got the challenge part down, so we can try to swing back the other.

[Eternaly_Lost]

Agreed on not having anything contribute simply by being on.

For FS is currently already checking for how many cities/structures you have, so I think that one's ok.

For Champs it does 0.25*ChampCount so it's not totally binary, but unless you're up to BBs it's a penalty.  Would 0.0625 * ChampHullSize * ChampCount be better?  ChampHullSize being 1 for FF, 2 for DD, etc.  Or perhaps 0.5 for FF, 1.25 for DD, 2.5 for CA, 4.0 for BB.  Not sure how accurate that is about the power.

For Golems, should it be a certain multiplier per golem you actually have under your command?  Different for each type of golem?  Suggested numbers?

For Spirecraft, should be a certain multiplier per spirecraft you actually have under your command?  I'm not sure that'd actually be accurate, though, as you can go from "just asteroids" to "dazzalottamartyrs" quite quickly.  I guess it could just contribute zero if you have zero Spirecraft, and if you cheese it by building them after the 30 minutes... well, I guess then you cheese it

My first concern was making sure SD wouldn't just be hugely easy to exploit for a win, as that kind of short-circuits the game. 
But a higher priority is that they be fun, and I think they've got the challenge part down, so we can try to swing back the other.

Although I con't know how it is without Golem and Spirecraft for the numbers, the only thing I quesiton is this : For each galactic capitol, add 1. Why is that not an if statement? If you have a galactic capitol add one. I never build the second, third or four ones that I often can as they don't add anything that I know of, but I think that should be an if.

Here what I think we might want to start with.

Each active golem adds 0.25.
Each active Spirecraft  add 0.075

So each Golem would be about a Champion (They seem to be roughly the same level to me when I play), and every 4 Spire Craft would be about a golem. The Spirecraft might be too, more so as a shield spirecraft is not the same as a martyr. So that one might want to be broken out more precisely.

As for Champs, I don't think you need to adjust it. You have to take enough worlds to get the Showdown started that players with Champs should have had enough time to go and get the higher rank hulls. Granted if they fail the missions, then they don't get it, but that would be a cost of failing those missions.